Day 59: Sunday, June 4

Today we spent our free mornings working on our final papers, and after grabbing lunch we hopped on board the Spiros Express to Corinth for the afternoon. Unfortunately, our guide for the day missed his flight from Croatia yesterday and left us flying solo, but Professor Hruby, Tim, and Katie from the Corinth Museum did an admirable job of guiding us through the site. Although our hike up the incredibly imposing Akrocorinth was cut short by an unexpected 3:00 closing time, we managed to survey the area before reconvening at its base and going over the basic history of the site.

We spent rest of our afternoon dividing our time between the museum and the ancient site, which with the exception of the extremely early Temple of Apollo is almost entirely Roman. When the Romans first captured Corinth, the city was the capital of the Achaean League, and as a result the displeased Romans burned most of the settlement to the ground, killed all its men, and enslaved all its women and children. All in a day’s work for a bunch of angry legionaries. The museum is full of amazing Roman portrait sculpture and mosaics, as well as two colossal statues of captive Phrygians, who are shown wearing their barbaric Phrygian caps and – worst of all – pants, which were unthinkable for any self–respecting Roman. We wrapped up the day by splitting up and delivering brief presentations on a handful of the buildings throughout the site before hopping back on the bus and heading back to Nafplio for the evening.